Nippon Steel vice chairman Takahiro Mori has returned to the US to progress the company’s acquisition of US Steel.
Following Mori’s weeklong stateside trip in May, the vice chairman is back in the US to meet with business leaders, politicians and Pennsylvania community leaders, Kallanish learns from a Reuters report.
Nippon Steel is examining compliance measures that will allow the company to close the deal with US Steel.
“If the US authorities tell me: ‘You have to do this, otherwise this deal cannot be admitted,’ in that case we should study this seriously,” Mori says.
In March, Politico reported that there is potentially an antitrust issue facing the Calvert, Alabama, facility Nippon co-owns with ArcelorMittal. Mori expressed his disbelief that this would be an obstacle for the deal with US Steel to go through, according to the report from Reuters.
Politicians, including President Joe Biden, have been outspoken about US Steel remaining domestically owned (see Kallanish passim). The president promised the United Steelworkers (USW) that he would do his best to support them (see Kallanish passim). The USW is soon to be in arbitration with US Steel regarding what the union contends were violations of its basic labour agreements (see Kallanish passim).
Despite Mori’s meetings with the union, the USW is not aligned with a Nippon Steel acquisition of their Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based employer. Mori responds to the union pushback: “The USW says our offers are not good enough, but it is not clear what is not good enough. We are always open to talk.”
Mori emphasises that the “the process would likely run more smoothly after the US presidential election as the deal will be no longer a political issue.”
Kristen DiLandro USA
